The realm creator is the king.. So whatever wizard user name and load-out you are using at the time of creating the realm is the name and load-out the king will use (so you can customize the king and give them a lore-based/story-based theme)..

..and I think the kings ally for your final battle can't be chosen/customized.

The kings ally is a bit like a marauder, it has a random AI wizard name/load-out but that name/load-out becomes preset to the realm. Maybe there are some workarounds to get a favorable choice of preset ally by resetting the realm until you draw a half decent one.. you can use the same method to change the map seeds.

Marauders are probably completely random (non-customizable). The only way to get durable marauders (and lords) to spawn is to set the realm difficulty high, the strength of their armor is directly linked to realm difficulty, low difficulty level gives them weak armor which means they present no challenge at all and die far too easily..

..I don't like this method of adjusting the overall difficulty. I believe a low realm difficulty level should only handicap the AI wizards in terms of mercs etc., not their actual armor/bodygear.. this way they would at least get to represent their wizard type correctly within the context of the game (it's silly when they are vigilant but can't tank a shot, or heroic but can't hit/do damage, or arcane with low MP).

(Talk to Anjovi and Aka, they know some good workarounds for controlling marauder spawn rates and destinations)

Ok, so if I change my name in-game and wear the regalia of the wizard king character in my realm then the palace king will have the new name and gear?

Do I need to change name and wear the configuration every time I submit the realm for moderation?

Also, bit off my topic, but i'm ok with cheaply armed champions sallying into the realm to cut off supply lines. I don't like strong marauders because my villagers don't have a proper ability to engage them in manual combat and RNG can waste a whole realm run very quickly.

That lack of control over marauders and the wizard king ally is maddening.

Spending hours planning for encounters to steadily challenge a player, only to have a time spawned marauder show up and trounce them just after they lost their allies against a carefully placed Wizard Lord means that as a realm designer you're not really in control of the player's experience. (Encounter spawned marauders should be the default way of introducing them to a realm, with time spawned being optional).

And the naming is horrendous; you've vanquished 'Merlin', defeated 'Torquemada', slain 'Rasputin the Mad' the player is about to face off in a titanic battle against 'The Dark Necromancer' and then.... 'Poncy the Elf Slayer' pops up next to him as an ally. What, did we suddenly enter a magical Middle England tea party or something?

Re seeding - Is it possible to do this in order to get some control over what appears? - Set your Palace Battle and Towns and what not right next to the entrance portal for the realm whilst you're testing it, play through to that battle quickly (just give yourself a heap of mana via auto resolving battles), and then once you're happy with the seeded parts of the realm move those seeded parts to where you'd like to ultimately have them placed.

Agree with all that, but until it is changed, Spite, there are unorthodox methods of sortof controlling marauders to a degree. You can usually create a trap for them and they will stay put, keep them from messing with your game dynamics.

Yes, high-level realms can have up to 6 marauders on the map at once. They will have diff builds and awful names.

The spawning of marauders is a mystery for greater minds than mine. They are a curious entity. Part of it is time-based, one will spawn after a certain length of passed days. There is also a factor in there related to them having a task, that which compels them: guarding linked towns, re-taking citadels and mana generators, etc.

Time and occupied citadels are the major devices that effect your spawn counter. This is the main reason you have all of these annoying events to click through at the start of high-level realms: designers stacking up the spawn count prior to battle. The realm I'm working on now, my counter is over 10,000.

I am still forever confused about how reinforcements are chosen though, the parameters elude me. In my current realm, I have pegasus set at 2%, yet they appear as reinforcements at least 60% of the time, when you have diff tiered reinforcements, like dragons and pegi, the numbers are all screwy. I have dragons set at 50%. So, usually this results in 1 or 2 of them in a battle, occasionally 6 (•)-(•)

There are marauder caps for all the realm levels, in terms of how many might appear on the map at any given time between 1 and 6. I don't think there are in-game limits on reinforcement counts, though I may be wrong. Part of the moderation process is us chatting about that stuff, deciding together what makes the most sense.